Dead Field Theorem
by Moonraker One
Summary: You can't play god, son! And you can't change what something is, without destroying what it was! Such words came from his father, the fourth. And he never understood them until after Hinata died...


Dead Field Theorem  
by Moonraker One

Musty smells of stale water lurked slowly from the floor to the nose. Old brick and seldom cleaned rock flooring made this the part of the Konoha penal building seldom seen by the outsiders. A pair of footsteps trudged solemnly across the hard floor towards the cell, a daintier-sounding pair of feet immediately trailing behind. As the pathetically-attached lights swayed back and forth in the wind coming in through the glass-less barred-up windows, chomping sounds came from within a cell near the far back. A bucket powerfully emitted the stink of human waste from within. A hand lifted a self-defense stick and clanged the steel cage door. Grime-covered, overgrown locks of stained blonde hair shifted backwards as a head lifted from devouring week-old stale ramen. His face covered in filth and his clothes tattered and stinking of body odor, Naruto Uzumaki blinked as he regarded the emotionless guard with cold hatred in his bloodshot eyes.

"Got a visitor, asshole."

"_Look, father," he demanded, regarding the older man with dire desperation, "I need to know some things right now if I'm ever going to get things back to normal!"_

_The old man, having walked this path of life before, shook his head in sorrowful despair. "Son, you can't do this! It isn't natural!"_

"_Why the FUCK NOT!"_

_The man shot straight up to a standing position and banged his fist on the table. "BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE WAY THINGS ARE WITHOUT KILLING WHAT THEY WERE! JUST BY COMING HERE YOU COULD BE KILLING SOMEONE YOU LOVE!"_

"_Bullshit!" he shouted. "You watch. I'll send your ass a flower and a bowl of ramen when I make everything fucking perfect."_

_Then, like a twig snapping, the dam of emotion broke. The old man leapt across the table, tackling his son and proceeding to choke the life out of him. Only the six guards prevented him from killing the boy. "YOU CAN'T PLAY GOD! YOU CAN'T!"_

The young girl stepped into the cell and sat in the bench across from her father. The guard removed the bucket of shit to make it more bearable. She coughed and regarded her father with a somewhat emotionless attitude. She gave him the cake she'd baked for him. "I guess I should see you one last time before you die," she said to him, her words like knives stabbing him in the heart. "I didn't want you to go to hell thinking I absolutely had no feelings for you at all."

Naruto stared into her byakugan eyes. "Naruko," he said to his daughter, "you always believed I hated your mother. It isn't true. Hinata may have had somewhat mixed feelings about being with me, but I always loved her with..."

She stomped her foot, cutting him off. "SHUT UP YOU BASTARD!" she cried, shouting. This story she'd heard before. "I was there! You stabbed her with your kunai! You murdered her!" She stood up and stormed to the cell door.

"DO YOU WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH OR NOT?" he screeched, making sure she heard loudly. "Sit down. I'm not expecting you to believe all I've told you. Certainly I didn't believe it when my father told me. But every word I've ever told you is the truth."

She sat down, giving him a second chance to speak. "You were five years old, I don't expect you to fully remember. Your mother always fluctuated between hating and loving me. It was due to the event when she was a newborn. When the Kyuubi attacked and was sealed in her, your grandfather threw her out because she was the demon to him, and raised me as payment to my father for saving us. She always hated that. I always tried to save her from herself but it just wouldn't happen." He coughed, wiping tears from his eyes, which looked much older than twenty-nine.

"The day she died she was having a mood swing due to the Kyuubi's influence over her emotionally-charged mind. She wouldn't have gotten murderous if she hadn't gotten upset. She grabbed a kunai and wanted to kill you because you were crying and she couldn't stand it. I wanted to calm her down but I couldn't. She stormed after you to kill you, so I jumped her and intended to wrestle the blade from her, but she whirled to attack me and as we landed on top of one another my body weight jammed the sharp end into her chest."

"Isn't that just a convenient FUCKING STORY!" She got up and stormed out, slamming the cell door. "You could at least have come up with something better than that!"

"But that's the truth," he whispered to himself as she left, crying loudly.

He knew his course of action. This would be his one chance, and he wouldn't blow it. For the sake of the ones he loved, he had to.

CHAPTER ONE

He bowed before his lord Hokage. "My lord, the information you asked me to obtain is in my file," Naruto told him. "All went according to plan."

"Naruto-san," Sasuke explained, "Lee and yourself performed exceptionally well on the last couple of missions. Perhaps it would be time for you two to be considered for level promotion." He waved. "You may go now."

He smiled, even though it was fake. "Thank you, Sasuke-sama." Silently contemptuous of his friend's position over himself, he left with the familiar sense of pain he felt from not getting the recognition he deserved. He had two more stops before heading back home; first he had to head to the ramen stand to get some more food, and then to the store to replace the shuriken holster he had that kept wearing out.

At the ramen stand, Naruto fell into the usual standard of routine. His traditional seat did not have any occupants in it, much to his relief. He sat down and with a nod of his head found his bowl filled with comfort food, the same comfort food once made by someone very close to him. He dropped a few coins on the countertop and a glass of sake appeared ready to make his sorrows disappear. He laughed at the irony; he'd always found alcoholism a disease for those caught up in an emotional muckpit. Now he himself was caught in one. Iruka sat down next to him.

"The usual, Naruto-sama?" he noticed, trying to stir friendly conversation. "I thought you might be trying something new."

Naruto bowed his head. "It's after hours, Iruka-san," he reminded, hoping this time it would sink in, "you don't have to treat me as a superior after hours."

Iruka reminded his former student of the painfully obvious. "You can't keep walking around like a zombie devoid of emotions. I'm sorry for Hinata, but you _have_ to move on..."

Naruto stood up, leaving his former sensei behind without a further word.

Iruka, in vain, tried to say the right word to stop him. "You're killing yourself with this, Naruto..." No answer came. The blonde nin decided to skip the store; he felt tired.

Once back home he walked up the steps to the room he shared with Neji on the second floor of the Hyuuga mansion. He pulled out his keys to unlock the door, but found it to open slightly when his toe inadvertently tapped it. "Oi, Naruto-san!" Neji cried out, signaling his roommate. "I've got this new novel from the library you should read." Naruto rolled his eyes as he read the title.

"The Dead Field Theorem and Other Assorted Time Field Theories, by Doctor Kusoma Katagawa," he recited. Looking down he tossed the book dejectedly back at his roommate. "Now, Neji, you know me better than that. I'm not a science type." This had been the second time during the week Neji had attempted to distract him from his self-pity.

Neji interrupted his train of thought. "Ever since Hinata died you've been really bored lately. What the hell is the problem?"

"Hinata receiving the Kyuubi which totally fucked up her life wasn't my fault, I had no control over what my father did twenty-nine years ago when I was a newborn." He faced Neji, tired of having this discussion. "What I don't like is how she had to die." One thing he could not stand—yet found himself repeatedly doing—was reciting the story as it had gone. He knew exactly what Neji had next in store for him. He knew just what bullshit lie would be fed to him, yet again.

"She died accidentally," Neji fired at him, slightly angry. His tone held much warning in it. "You know that."

"That's crap! You know damn good and well she was sent on a mission she couldn't complete so that she would die." He knew in his heart that had to have been it. Sasuke had known full well her capabilities when he sent her out; she had never truly been liked in the village.

"She's my cousin, Naruto! If anyone has a right to be pissed it's me. Sasuke wouldn't do that. You're just pissed because my father put her out at a young age, and also because the council chose Sasuke instead of you."

Naruto sat down on his bed, rubbing the headache away. He shook his head back and forth, in exhaustion. "Look, Neji, I don't have time for this, I have work to do."

Neji desperately tried to reach his friend and roommate. The wall of emotional distress stood before him, and he couldn't seem to break through. "That's all you've been doing since she died, Naruto! You've been burying yourself in work! I know you loved her..."

Naruto rocketed to a standing position. "You don't know shit! She was everything to me! She didn't like me growing up but we made up for all that with how we got to know each other! Now quit the lecture and let me fucking get back to my work!" Like a torrent fury, the anger surged out of him. His primary trait had always been exceptional self-control, so as soon as the anger had come, it left. He sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just a bit stressed."

Neji turned away, giving a sorrowful look. He said not a word as he went back to reading. The whole ordeal of Naruto's life started just under thirty years ago when he was newborn. The son of the fourth Hokage, he had been moved to the Hyuuga house after Hiashi took him in. Yondaime had gone insane shortly after the Kyuubi attack, many assumed it had been due to the shock of surviving it. Usually it took the summoner's life. Hiashi, acting out of hatred of the demon, put out his eldest daughter Hinata after she received the demon from the fourth's jutsu. She'd grown up in intense hatred of Naruto due to his stealing of her father's attention, but eventually Naruto had gotten through that. They even fell in love. She and he had discussed the possibility of children. Then the mission happened.

Naruto quit reminiscing about memories he didn't want and went back to filling out post-mission paperwork to be turned in the next day. As he wrote information down he thought back to his father's words. "Watch out for the family curse," he'd warned his only son. "If you mess with it too much, you could do far more damage than just killing yourself." Preposterous, Naruto had always believed it to be; how could one do more damage than that? He thought of her final mission as he finished.

He stripped and entered the shower. With the door locked he leaned his head against the wall and let the hot water course down his muscular frame. _If only I'd been on that mission with her or instead of her,_ he thought. _If only I'd been on that mission with her or instead of her._

The water brought a sleepy aura over him like a river flooding over the plains. _If only I'd been on that mission instead of her..._

_Instead of her..._

_Instead..._

A sharp splash of cold water awakened him. A tempest rising at once, he snapped to full awareness. _Where the fuck am I_? He looked around; cold water below him, the misty haze above him, he acknowledged at once he had fallen into a pool of water, or rather, jumped in. _What the fuck?_

A figure reached into the pool, grasped his hair and hoisted him out, delivering a sharp kick which tossed him across the water and back onto dry ground. "What the hell do you guys want?" he shouted. At once he heard the light timber and soft tone of his voice. He stared into the water, at his reflection.

Hinata's face stared him straight back with a matching expression. He ran his hands over his body, a frightening realization hit. _I'm...Hinata?_ Further realization; _I'm Hinata on _THE _mission!_ But he wouldn't have time to think or analyze the situation deeper.

A pair of feet intended to crash down onto his head; he ducked out of the way and felt his body for a weapon. Grasping a ninjato, he whirled, slashing off the man's head. Several more men appeared. Recalling the mission file he'd read endlessly, she died when taken by surprise from behind. Hastily he turned around and pushed a kunai from his path and drove the attacker's own weapon into his heart.

"Who the hell else wants to take me on!" he screeched. Four others attacked him and, thanks to his superior knowledge, got cut down easily. The men, so ready to kill when at advantage, suddenly felt disheartened and ran like the cowards they were. He looked behind him; one man she'd killed before he arrived. He felt his eyes darkening. "Naruto-kun?"

"Naruto-kun?"

A pat to the shoulder brought him awake. "Naruto-kun!"

"Aaaah!"

He slipped from the bathtub and fell to the hard tiled bathroom floor. A finger appeared above a mouth. "Shh! You'll wake the kids!" He began to twitch in amazement as the image before him appeared ever so slowly. He still had no comprehension of where he'd gone and when he'd come back. The shock of it all took a while to digest. But the woman before him seemed most impossible of all.

"H...Hi...Hinata...?" he gasped. "You...You're...you're dea...aAAAAAH!" As though a bomb exploded in his head, a huge wave of sheer pain shot through every synapse of every neuron, driving pain through his mind. A gray series of images blasted one by one through his mind as a slew of memories he'd never experienced before made themselves known to him all at once. A new life, this one WITH Hinata in it, came to him.

"NARUTO-KUN!"

Blood poured from his nose as he convulsed from the agony of the surge of thoughts. She rubbed his head as the convulsing and the images ended. "Naruto-kun, are you okay?" She wiped the blood off.

"You're dead...what...what the hell happened...I went...I went back and...all the...I can't believe..."

She grunted, hoisting him to his feet. "Naruto-kun, I think you may have had an epileptic seizure. Let me help you to bed."

--

A/N: Some of you may not know what happened, but if you continue reading, I promise it will all be made clear. Also, the Dead Field Theorem is not a real scientific theory; it is a plot device. Do not attempt to search for it, it isn't real.


End file.
